In Buddhism, vitarka (Sanskrit, also vitarkah; Pali: vitakka; Tibetan phonetic: tokpa), "applied thought," "attention," and vicara, (Sanskrit( विचार) and Pali; also vicāra; Tibetan phonetic: chöpa) "discernment," "sustained thinking," are qualities or elements of the first dhyana. While the Buddhist commentarial tradition interprets vitarka and vicara as the initial and sustainted application of attention to a meditational object, they may be one expression referring to "the normal process of discursive thought," which is supprssed by concentration in the second dhyana.[1][2]

Vitarka may refer to mental activities that are manifest both in normal consciousness and in the first stage of dhyana.[4] In general, it means "thought," "applied thought," or "distracted thoughts."[4] According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, "In the Suttas, the word Vittaka is often used in the loose sense of thought, but in the Abhidhamma it is used in a precise technical sense to mean the mental factor that mounts or directs the mind towards an object."[3]

Vitarka and vicara are two of the qualities or elements of the first dhyana (Pali: jhana), which are absent in the higher jhanas.[12][13]

In Theravada, vitarka is one of the mental factors (cetasika) that apprehend the quality of an object. It is the "initial application of attention"[4] or the mind to its object,[13] while vicara is the sustained application of the mind on an object.[14]

While initially simply referring to thought, which in present at the onset of dhyana, the terms vitarka and vicara were re-interpreted by the developing Abhidharma and commentarial tradition. According to Roderick S.Bucknell, "vitakka-vicara, the factor that particularly characterizes the first jhana, is probably nothing other than the normal process of discursive thought, the familiar but usually unnoticed stream of mental imagery and verbalization."[12][note 1]

Martin Stuart Fox explains, referring to Rhys Davids and Stede, when vitarka-vicara are mentioned in tandem, they are one expression, "to cover all varieties of thinking, including sustained and focused thought. It is thinking in this inclusive sense that the meditator suppresses through concentration when he attains one-ness of mind and thus moves from first to second jhana."[1]

Vitarka is also regarded in the Theravada-tradition as an anti-dote for thina-middha (sloth and torpor), one of the five hindrances.[3] According to Stuart-Fox, the Abhidhamma separated vitarka from vicara, and ekagatta (onepointednes) was added to the description first dhyana to give an equal number of five hindrances and five anti-dotes.[15] The commentarial tradition regards the qualities of the first dhyana to be antidotes to the five hindrances, and ekagatta may have been added to the first dhyana to give exactly five anti-dotes for the five hindrances.[16] Stuart-Fox further notes that vitarka, being discursive thought, will do very little as an anti-dote for sloth and torpor, reflecting the inconsistencies which were introduced by the scholastics.[16]

The Vitarka mudrā, "mudra of discussion," expresses vitarka, joining the tips of the thumb and the index together, and keeping the other fingers straight. This mudra has a great number of variants in Mahayana Buddhism, and is also known as Prajñāliṅganabhinaya and Vyākhyāna mudrā ("mudra of explanation").